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Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams

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I live in Northern California, teach high school English, have lived and worked in Hungary and Romania, married a man from Japan, mother of one beautiful child, and think that God is the best thing since sliced bread.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

During the last week of my pregnancy My Sweet and I were talking a lot to the baby. Our monologues went something like this: Mom, “Please do not come this week until my maternity leave starts! Anytime after Friday is OK.” Dad, “Please do not come until after the new camera gets here!”

My Sweet and I had taken a birth class and we learned how to breathe properly to promote relaxation and saw several no holds barred films about natural childbirth, water births, c-section births and just about every type of birth possible. After each viewing My Sweet would say, “This was the lamest B horror movie I’ve ever seen.” Or he’d say, “This was the most boring porn I’ve ever watched.” To which I’d reply, “When have you ever watched porn?” “Um, I was speaking hypothetically, of course Sweetheart.” We were as prepared as anyone who’d never gone through the blessed event could be. We even had our Birth Plan ready: We wanted a midwife at the hospital, a water birth in their big ol’ Jacuzzi, breastfeeding only and no drugs unless I really, really, really, really, really need it. I say what “we” want, but I really mean what “I” want. We would discuss it, but he said it was all about what I wanted and could handle. His role could be likened to an amusement park attendant, he needed to make sure that I kept my hands and feet inside the car at all times and to make sure that a derailment didn’t happen. This included being able to read my mind and know if I really, really, really, really, need the drugs or just really, really need them.

Well, on Monday afternoon, the first day of my maternity leave and two days after the camera came in, I went in for a scheduled check-up and never came out. I called My Sweet and told him it was time, waking him out of a deep sleep, and he called My Dear Sweet Mother giving this detailed account, “It’s time for the hospital,” and hung up.

About 75% of my birth plan had to be ditched, and about 5 hours into everything, I really, really, really, really, REALLY needed the drugs. I had heard Carroll Burnett and Bill Cosby talk about the pain in childbirth, and I think for the sake of comedy they tamed it down a bit. Imagine placing a finger on a railroad track and having it run over while still knowing when it is over you will have to do it again. A friend of mine went through childbirth by clutching the side of the side of the bed and murmuring, “Jesus, be merciful to me.” I was more like, “Jesus, be merciful to me for the terrible things I said about You, your sainted Mother and Your Holy Father. I am truly sorry for shouting out those obscenities. But you were the one who put pain in childbirth, so please take what I said with a generous grain of salt.”

Well, after 24 hours of painful labor, which I will remind him of every moment of his teen years, our son was born, beautiful and handsome. Life will never be the same again.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Yes I am back. I’d like to say that the pregnancy is the reason that I have gotten out of the discipline of writing. It definitely had something to do with it, in much the same way the flu gets you out of the habit of working out at the gym. You get sick and truly do not have the energy to work out, and then you have a crazy week at work that drains you, and before you know it you are reacquainted with the easy relationship of your sofa and television. Well, I am metaphorically getting off of the couch and back on the writer’s treadmill. But with the end of the writers’ strike TV is actually beginning to be worth watching again (Oh Sawyer how I have missed you, Jake was just a temporary fling!)

Here is something from my pregnancy. (I know, I promised that the blog would not be “All Baby, All the Time”. Well, cut me some slack, hopping on the writing treadmill means posting about what is right in front of me, and right now I have baby on the brain.) Being good first time parents, My Sweet and I dutifully attended a getting ready for childbirth class. In that class they recommended getting a birthing ball, the same as a pliaties/exercise ball, which we went out and bought. I enjoyed sitting on this so much that I seriously thought about bringing it to work. But, I never wanted to be this guy: